


Afternoons Golden as Sunshine in His Hair

by Estivate



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Body Worship, Florid prose, M/M, Maxfield Parrish Aesthetic, Poetic Pining, Porn w Feelings, Secret Relationship, Shapeshifter Loki, Sleeping Beauty AU, Somnophilia, fairytale AU, uncle loki, wholesome fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estivate/pseuds/Estivate
Summary: Sometimes Loki will take bold liberties. All of Asgard becomes ensorcelled, like the immense plate on which they feast, for their delectation alone. Embroiders rest on the patterns they were creating, curling into the blooming art. Knights doze upright, propped up by their spears and stiff armor. Every mouse in the palace is dormant in their nest, the cheeses safe. Marketplaces that would have seen the daily rush are quiescent, apples tumbling from their pyramids. Even his father, the King, is escorted far away in his resting mind on winged chariots of gold.Happiness becomes someone Thor chases and waits for, annually, caught within this fantastic euphoria.Thor grows each year, more handsome than the last, and a smarter lad than before to be sure. Loki is pleased that his blessings have borne fruit and will become riper still.





	Afternoons Golden as Sunshine in His Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impalaforthree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impalaforthree/gifts).



> For LokiLovesThorki who wanted Uncle!Loki, and Impalaforthree who wanted to see if it were humanly possible for me to not hurt her constantlyyy.

 

 

King Odin fretted before his throne, pacing back and forth – stopping every now and then to set his crown right because of how his brow was dipped in worry. The entire castle was in disarray, getting ready for the infant prince’s christening, but Odin’s concerns had little to do with the correct coat of arm’s redesign, or the length of red carpet rolled out to receive the neighboring kingdoms’ royalty.

 

His queen catches his hand in her own gentle one to give him pause.

 

“Did you make sure to send Muninn as well?”

 

“Yes, my dear. Although Huginn returned with the scroll untied. He must have received the invitation.”

 

“Did you make sure to set out his dish and cutlery set as gold-plated and jeweled?”

 

She rolls her eyes, “Yes dear, and he will be seated at the head of the magician’s high table.”

 

“Good. Good.” and wracks his brain for other details, but he was getting old now, hair whitening and beard graying. There was much excitement and anticipation around his first-born, a golden heir upon a blessed age to be sure. Absolutely nothing can go wrong.

 

Beside him, Frigga coos and pats the bundle in her arms. She has waited so long to finally have a child. He is, naturally, the most beautiful being she has ever beheld.

 

“Loki can be unpredictable after all. I’d rather not risk his perception at being slighted.”

 

Frigga pursed her lips. “Yes, I remember.” The giant bramble forest that had sprung up once when one of the lesser fairies declared herself more skillful. Trade had stopped for months, but it’s not like they starved. If Frigga never sees a blackberry pie again, it will be too soon.

 

“Everything to be done, I have done twice, and then twice over hence.”

 

That afternoon as the trumpets blared, the horse-drawn carriages arrived, forms of nobility began their attendance, and all the other guests have arrived, giving their gifts and blessings, the silhouette of their most fearsome ally however, had not yet graced the hall and Odin became nervous again.

 

He sighs and rubs his temple. Perhaps it’s better after all, if Loki snubbed their invitation. He’s never known him as one for festivities. The house of Tyr was bestowing them a gilt toy sword, which Frigga mentally cautions not to bring out until her son is at least eight.

 

But then a cold draft entered the grand hall and ripple of black robes and viridian manifests from dark energy. The audience gasped and stepped back, giving the scene a wide berth. Odin straightens on his throne while Frigga smooths away the wrinkles on her lap. A figure solidifies from the semblance like a column of a water droplet before it settles.

 

 _Ah, but he is one for dramatics._ Odin recalls. Loki coalesces before them. Proud and present. “You have decided to join us then. I trust you received my invitation with decorum.”

 

“Invitation? No Odin, I merely came here to return the raven who was caught circling my citadel.”

 

Odin swallows. What if it had slipped off during the flight?

 

Loki lets him sweat a little before breaking into a smirk. “I jest, old friend. The invitation came, but where would the fun have been in waiting at the gates as everyone shuffled through the doors?” and shoos Muninn from his perch on Loki’s forearm. “It is a pleasure to be received in glory upon this momentous day, king Odin.” bows with a flourish of his cape, so low as to be a shade sarcastic.

 

Other than his and her highness, respectively, the assemblage before them still shrunk from his gaze. _Good._ Better to be feared than forgotten. And _ah_ , even the table setting had been done according to his tastes. One would almost think he was the one being celebrated rather than the toddler. _Hmm._ Yes, that one. Well, he’s here. He may as well have a look.

 

The baby was lying in a cherrywood bassinet, swathed in red, silk embroidered draping and gold thread. Loki makes his way to the little curiosity and peers over the hood. Loki is dressed in his hellish best and even he thinks the infant’s presentation is rather excessive.

 

But then, while he supposes better looking babies must exist, he doesn’t think he’s seen any. That could just be because he isn’t the baby formality attending type. So out of curiosity, he picks up the sleeping bundle, fat and white with wisps of platinum blond hair growing and is gentle not to disturb. The nurse maids waiting on hand side eye Frigga nervously. She shakes her head at them.

 

He chuckles, “Well, won’t you be a lovingly spoiled one.”

 

 _Indeed he shall._ Frigga foresees and smiles to herself. “Is there anything you’d like to gift the young sovereign?” she asks.

 

He looks towards the small mountain of gifts accumulating already and contemplates. Odin’s realm is a wealthy one. There is nothing this child will want for materially, growing up. The other second-rate fairies might be able to strain themselves procuring something of value, but Loki knows their talents will only last up until the first decade at best, or else be completely frivolous. Please Fauna, _song_?

 

He cradles the child closer and whispers “May you grow to be all that your parents wish for you to become and the hopes of your people made true.”

 

The child yawns and stirs to wake up then, eyes blinking blue and wide. So curious.

 

“And what’s his name?”

 

Frigga expression melts in fondness. She knew that the even prickly mage would not be able to help being smitten. “Thor.”

 

He settles Thor down where he was before and bows again. “A good name.”

 

And then disappears in a serpentine coil of smoke. Because he _was_ dramatic like that. And he _did_ in fact hate festivities. But it was still good of them to invite him.

 

Otherwise he may have gotten angry.

 

\---

 

And because Loki does not consider himself one without follow-through, he visits on the princeling’s first birthday, but he does so discretely.

 

One by one, the ladies in waiting and chambermaids stifle yawns that spare none of others in the room. The one preparing bedding becomes so tired that she decides to crawl into the warm sheets herself and lie down for a few moments. Another one slumps on the desk where she had been preparing the next few days’ itinerary and lays her head down on her folded arms, remembering just in time to set the quill back in the ink well. A third dumps the basket of laundry out and hastily does a makeshift pillow pile before succumbing to slumber.

 

Loki melts into corporeality, standing over the little one’s crib. They would have been alarmed if he had popped into existence right then and there, dark plumed cloak and all.

 

Thor is awake, and rather good at rolling. He’s also doing his best to clasp his airborne feet with his hands, but coordination evades him still. Loki raises an eyebrow. “Good to see that the pox has not taken you then.” Like it had taken some others from surrounding kingdoms.

 

Thor babbles happily. The chubby fiend. All gums and no teeth.

 

By all indication however, Thor is growing robustly and prettily. Loki will have to curb the spread of plague if it tries to transmit through Asgard’s walls.

 

Thor caught a foot. Giggles stupidly. “Congratulations.” Loki drawls.

 

He supposes he’s seen enough then, but it’d be a terrible shame if his gifts were wasted on a dullard in the end. So he smiles and taps the boy on his button nose, whispers something that forms like fine morning mist on his cherubic skin. Now it shall not be so. Assured, and hearing footsteps approaching, “Farewell then little one.”

 

Shimmers out of sight like dew evaporating at warming dawn.

 

Frigga returns shocked at the negligence and laziness by her own attendants. Scolds them into waking with a stern word and her hands on her hip. They seem terribly apologetic however and confused, saying there were no recent great revelries that would have resulted in such weariness. She tsks.

 

When she goes to pick up Thor however, he is grasping a long ebon and myrtle feather in his hand. Holding tight while tossing his arms. She can’t imagine where it came from. Thor seems happy however, and trills delightedly.

 

 _At least he’s not putting it in his mouth._ She thinks.

 

\---

 

Many more years pass before Loki thinks about Odin’s heir again.

 

He’s flying over the realm upon the southern wind, chasing a contemptuous shrike as it’s darting between the flying buttresses of the castle. The thing has nipped its tail for the last time and used his favourite impaling spike to collect prey on, not realizing the kind of enemy it’s made. Loki doubles the speed of flight but is worse equipped to make sharp turns, and careens through the trillium holes of a lattice stone archway.

 

There, a charging page boy nearly steps on his wing. The scoundrel.

 

After collecting himself, he realizes he’s in the castle. More servants rush by. What was all the hurry about anyhow? He flaps his wings and flies towards the kitchens. That was always where there was the most talk. There’s a nice window alcove that’s perfect – after he pecks away the pair of parlor pigeons however. Those parlor pigeons. Always sapping about. There he rests and preens his ruffled feathers.

 

The bakers can’t knead dough fast enough for the next tray of pastries. Birthdays were always such a bother, but this one especially so. The tenth after all: double digits. Still, the trouble shall all be worth it if the little prince smiles on return and enjoys this day.

 

And doesn’t that attitude tell Loki something? Modest as the task is, it is a labour-intensive one on a hot summer afternoon, but the servants do so with no complaints other than that they cannot do it even quicker. _What must the prince have grown into?_ Loki wonders.

 

Well, since his prey has gotten away and Loki was unceremoniously here, might as well check in and make sure Odin’s future is looking prosperous. He takes off once more.

 

Upon spying through Frigga’s chambers however, the youth is not with her. Loki reminds himself that Thor is no longer baby-sized, so of course he won’t be finding him in a cradle. The tyke probably has his own rooms now. It takes him some time, for Odin’s castle is large, but Loki eventually finds the rooms atop a thick spiral tower with the accommodations of matching status and sees for himself the youngling.

 

The boy had his back turned to him however, kneeling down and looking for something in a chest. He is alone yet. Either the boy is the prince or a thief. Loki chooses to snap into his true shape, causing the other to startle and turn around. The same shade of blue eyes – that he remembers – stare back at him wide. He smiles. The other possibility would have resulted in something a little less pleasant…

 

“Hello my prince.” and takes a seat on a chair, crossing his legs and leaning his cheek on the back of his hand, amused.

 

The boy doesn’t seem to know what to make of the situation, but at least hasn’t screamed or run away. His chest is heaving slightly though. His face is slightly freckled, but his skin is russet fine, cheeks an apple shine, as any child who has been having fun growing in the sun.

 

The stranger who snuck up on him just now…he’s dressed like no one else Thor has seen before. But there’s only one person in the kingdom he’s heard rumors of who would carry himself so suspiciously. Thor didn’t hear anyone coming up or the door opening. Magicians could teleport anywhere they wanted though.

 

However, his father has the loyalty of all his subjects, so Thor has nothing to fear, right?

 

“Are you the witch-king Loki?” he asks, perhaps a little more awed than frightful, but he hopes comes off more brave than awed.

 

“My, is that what they’re calling me now?”

 

“Most of the times they just call you a witch.” he mumbles.

 

“They have terrible imaginations is what it is.” It’s not that Loki is unaware, and un-flattered, it’s just that it’s so hard to be both feared _and_ respected. One thing at a time. Maybe the next century is when he’ll try for the latter.

 

“I’m a seidr-master.” He clarifies. Thor nods, as if that makes all the difference in the world.

 

_Nevermind._

 

And changes the topic “What were you rummaging around for earlier?” Children talked about themselves much more easily.

 

“My birthday shirt!” he exclaims, just remembering, and goes back to looking for it.

 

Loki gives him a minute. He doesn’t suppose said shirt is in fact, not in the clothing chest at all, but might be the one that has a corner piece of rich cloth sticking out from underneath the bed. He steals it using seidr and dimension-pockets the item.

 

“What might this shirt look like?”

 

“Mother just had it made,” he said, sounding dejected, but he goes on to describe the trim, hem, and cut. Loki pretends to listen intently, while unstitching the thing in shadow-work.

 

Then he steers Thor towards the mirror, and crouches, summoning it all back together around his top, fastens and sews, like a ghostly seamstress working. Thor is astonished.

 

It only takes a moment and then the magic is done.

 

Thor pats himself down proudly. “I’m ten now.”

 

 _That’s not how birthdays work. Didn’t I say you couldn’t be a dullard?_ “Are you old enough to show me all the things you appreciate about this kingdom?”

 

Thor ducks his head at that, the same way children do when they think something will get them into trouble. “I don’t think I should be seen with you.”

 

Loki draws himself up to his full height and wordlessly casts a spell over the entire castle grounds as gilt glimmer in the sky that Thor’s eyes widen at past his shoulder. “Well then, we simply won’t be seen.” and offers his hand.

 

Children can be lured by their curiosities like that, but would an evil sorcerer really use gold snow to cause villainy? It didn’t seem to make aesthetic sense to Thor, so he takes Loki’s hand eagerly.

 

It doesn’t take long before Thor realizes what Loki has done. Guards snoring softly at their post, scroll-bearers leaning against the walls, head on another’s shoulder. Minstrels silent, a hand motionless on their instrument, collapsed after a strum. Thor barely believes it and steals one of the sleeping guard’s helmet.

 

“Is this for real?” eyes excited while lifting the faceplate.

 

Loki follows, watching the boy run from one type of figure to the other, waving his hand in front of faces, rearranging limbs, switching equipment. “Would you rather I wake them?”

 

“No don’t! They could use the rest. Everyone’s been working very hard leading up to today.” And races down the stairs. “Not to mention I seldom get very far without someone following me, or tutors finding me, or mother escorting me.”

 

Loki understands that Frigga must be very protective about her only child. Thor was still very young, and she no longer. Both her and Odin’s hopes now lay solely on Thor.

 

Like this, the world suddenly looks very different to Thor. He can take his time to pause and study all the minutiae of everyday life, sneak into places where it’d be untoward to be seen, go on an escapade without knowing he has worried anyone. He pets a kitten napping at the floral garlands, hanging from the garden wall, and asks “How long can you keep it this way?”

 

Loki plucks petals one by one off a Botticellian pink rose. “Until I have to go.”

 

Thor laughs the happiest he’s laughed all day, toothy smile and aureate cheer, “Then don’t go.” And monopolizes Loki’s time for himself. He drags the sorcerer by the hand, and together they partake in some more mischief.

 

Releasing doves out of their pie, exchanging the king’s crown with the queen’s, hiding the jester’s sceptre. He even allows himself to be talked into a game of hide and seek, where he hid as the reflection walking right beside Thor. It takes until Thor’s roaming across the garden’s silver pond does he realize and whoops, whipping around to grip him by the waist. Loki’s the best hide and seek player he’s ever met.

 

As effervescent he is however, even Thor tires eventually. Loki carries him back in his arms. He could always teleport them of course, but the boy asks a million questions and wants enough time for them answered.

 

“What do you do?”

 

“I keep the kingdom safe with my faraway methods.”

 

“How does father know you?”

 

“We used to be close once, like brothers.”

 

“Are you my uncle then?”

 

“Something like such.”

 

“Why is the sun not setting?”

 

“I slowed its descent.”

 

Indeed, they have been playing in the sleeping, suspended world for hours. They finally reach Thor’s rooms. The birthday boy can barely keep his eyes open. Thor is too weary to resist being peeled off, but neither does he make it easy. Loki tucks him in bed and can extend the spell around the castle for a little longer, long enough to give him a satisfying nap.

 

Loki sits by his side, watching slumber take him.

 

“Mother always kisses me whenever she sets me to bed.”

 

“I am hardly her.”

 

“Please? It helps.”

 

Charming, if not transparent. He obliges, kissing him on the crown.

 

“Will you be at the party?”

 

“No. I don’t much like parties.”

 

Thor’s _Oh_ combines into such a large yawn that Loki sees down to his tonsils.

 

“Can you come back on my next birthday then?”

 

By the time Loki whispers _‘Very well.’_ Thor has closed his eyes, chest falling gently.

 

“Farewell my prince.”

 

Flies away by the window he came in, soft as a dream.

 

\---

 

True to his word, Loki returns on Thor’s eleventh birthday. Thor fakes sleep like the rest of the castle but couldn’t successfully contain his giggles. He’s been looking forward to this day the entire year. Uncle Loki is like a closely guarded secret, one that literally brings his world to a halt and spellbinds the kingdom.

 

He was a strange man, certainly, but not nearly deserving of the kind of reputation people spoke of. Thor felt familiar and at ease with him, with someone he had only known once before. The magic that everyone else so feared seemed to him nothing short of freedom itself and all that it could grant, hovering so sweetly like the scent of nectar made thick to the bees.

 

Everyone else is in stupor and cessation, while Thor has never felt more alive. He made sure to eat a big breakfast. He was twelve now and his smile has been said to be dazzling. Thor doesn’t think Loki would be dazzled by anything short of the fattest diamond in all the land, but he tries.

 

Uncle Loki is resplendent in ways that don’t show on his person, dark as the night and fair like the moon, but just as his green eyes glittered with forbidden knowledge, his presence was one that was attractive by the gems of his wit, covered in the contours of his cleverness, and shone with the prospect of wishes coming true. Apart from mother and father, Thor considered him his favourite person, and was utterly _fascinated._

 

Thor grows another year fed upon the stories and tales told just for him, once and forever, the last time they spent together on the flowering banks of a glass-clear stream.

 

Sometimes Loki will take bold liberties. All of Asgard becomes ensorcelled, like the immense plate on which they feast, for their delectation alone. Embroiders rest on the patterns they were creating, curling into the blooming art. Knights doze upright, propped up by their spears and stiff armor. Every mouse in the palace is dormant in their nest, the cheeses safe. Marketplaces that would have seen the daily rush are quiescent, apples tumbling from their pyramids. Even his father, the King, is escorted far away in his resting mind on winged chariots of gold.

 

Happiness becomes someone Thor chases and waits for, annually, caught within this fantastic euphoria.

 

Thor grows each year, more handsome than the last, and a smarter lad than before to be sure. Loki is pleased that his blessings have borne fruit and will become riper still. At only fourteen, Thor is as tall as he is, possesses a head of hair that could stop a princess at prayer, and embraces him like something intendeds might do. Loki’s always the one to shake himself free. Any year now and Thor’s strength will come close to breaking bone.

 

On his fifteenth birthday, one in which muscle tone has filled in rather generously and voice fully deepened to that of maroon velvet, he looks down at Loki leaning in his lap and asks of love.

 

 _This is when you start to move away from me_. He thinks sadly. “What of it?”

 

“Bards sing of it an awful lot. Drunks pretend they’re above it. Ladies are forever tittering about it behind their fans and teacups. Paintings depict fateful encounters of such. Mother becomes young again, father softens.”

 

Loki stays quiet.

 

“What might it take the forms of?” Thor refines his question.

 

Loki changes his expression to one of amusement. “More commonplace can be the ones seen at every spring, around the maypole maidens dancing.” Loki can imagine it: a lass of girlhood pure with a wreath of flowers in her hair. exchanging satin ribbons and oxeye daisies with her prince whom she loves. “If you want someone harder won however, you’ll have to go questing for dragons and their keep. I hear those types are often prone to swooning.” And Loki can imagine that too: Thor walking out of the blaze, his sword slicked with drake blood, a damsel placing a kiss to his cheek, and proposing matrimony right on the spot.

 

He then quirks one eye open, looking up at Thor’s contemplative face – still smooth, still adolescent, and yet so much more serious than one for his age. “Has a lady made herself known to you?”

 

That prompts Thor from his reverie. He smiles. “No, not at all.” and looks away with a blush.

 

Loki can’t help but think that even his lies look sweet.

 

Thor had been hoping for a chance, an opening to ask: _Has there been one to love you…as much as I do?_ but although he has waited all year, he has not yet the courage to bring himself to do so.

 

They stay together like that for a long time instead. A summer devoid of the vivaciousness and frolicsome way of life, but here in the arcadian forest countryside. Light filters down through the leaves and their shadows reaching his face where Thor cannot. Loki once said he liked it here for the song of the cardinal, singing its scarlet little heart out.

 

The moment fulfills all that it does not, and before Thor knows it Loki has left him. When he opens his eyes, the warmth from their shared space has gone.

 

The following year he attends courtly life, trains himself to worthiness, goes questing and becomes a hero, retrieves so many handkerchiefs dropped that he thinks they may be doing it on purpose. He gave himself time and opportunity to find what he thought he was looking for, concluding it all futile in comparison.

 

Their next meeting, he is brave enough now. On his sixteenth birthday, he tells Loki he loves him, only for the other to disappear as breath upon the wind, like the whole world sighing, before they’ve spent a full eternity’s time together. Thor hopes he has not broken his own heart.

 

\---

 

For his nephew’s seventeenth birthday, Loki keeps him under the spell as well. Thor was just able to make it to the bed in time, coming right out of the bath before falling asleep.

 

The last time Loki had waited at his bedside, Thor was still a child getting drowsy after a mere few hours. Now it seems as if they have cumulatively lived a second life time with each other. A year usually passes quickly for Loki, though this last one has not.

 

He admires the sleeping visage, the first showings of a beard starting. He realizes he is perhaps, what some would call, mooning, but thankfully no one would ever dare describe him as such within hearing distance. 

 

“Foolish. You don’t even know what love means.”

 

Loki does though. And Loki knows he’s just a foolish if not more so. If he knew, back then on Thor’s tenth birthday, that the events would’ve led themselves to this, he would have defenestrated himself before any of it could come to pass. By now the damage was already done, whose heart does Thor not already possess? If he even cared to count.

 

He takes Thor’s hand in his and brings it to cup the side of his face. “You have every other love you could’ve ever wanted, yet you insist on wanting mine.”

 

From babe, to child, to youth, to a man. It feels like hardly anytime at all, yet Thor is before him, magnificent in his maturity. An utter beauty, practically indestructible. The only thing Loki could not make him was a god, but Thor just might find his way to ascension there as well. “I should have stuck with song after all. That way your image wouldn’t be seared into the eyelids of everyone who has ever had the misfortune to look at the sun directly.”

 

Thor somehow even looks even more powerful, nude and slack. Every muscle was as well defined as a statue in marble. “How could I help but love you?” he whispers in his ear. Thor’s face rests on its side into the pillows, blond hair fanned out, drying. As Loki studies him, he can’t help but wonder how much of that physique was inherited instead of enhanced. It was better than any welder or blacksmith’s and flawless from the protection spells Loki once granted him the year before Thor was to take up the sword.

 

“Did I inadvertently shape your growth according to my own latent desires? Has my selfishness all this time caused you to conform to my longings?” He couldn’t pinpoint the moment exactly. Was it when Thor opened his eyes at him on the first day of their meeting though Thor could not possibly remember? No, Loki knows his feelings then were only familial love.

 

And yet they are here…Loki professing himself like an infatuated lovelorn. He could not have said any of this had Thor been awake, however.

 

“I’d allow you to love me if I thought you could keep me.” But a future king’s romance is not always his to dictate, and rests his head on Thor’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, soothed by this temporary transgression.

 

It’s his seventeenth birthday now and Loki can not slow down time indefinitely. The exertion of doing so is already causing him to become fatigued, but oh how he’d be so loathe to give up his handsome prince, one day soon to be his king also.

 

When he pushes himself back up, ready to depart, his arm bumps against something, and Loki, understanding catching up before knowledge, thinks that surely it can’t—but it is.

 

All his whisper-tone sweet-talking has given Thor an erection.

 

Maybe Loki shouldn’t be surprised. His voice is not unpleasant to the ear, and Thor…well, Thor is a young and virile male in his prime, vigorous, full of vitality. Loki brings his hand up to clear his throat behind it. Well, he’s certainly glad that no one else is witness to the little spectacle he’s made of himself.

 

That being said, it strikes him, when he should vanish from the scene, that it’d be terribly poor taste to leave Thor like that. Can speech translate into dreams so lucidly? Has his hold on his spell become so tenuous that Thor is in a state of sleep paralysis as opposed to true dreaming? But if he lifts the spell…that’d be even more awkward. He can find out if he steps into Thor’s mind, sees what he’s seeing. It has been a year after all, perhaps a comely lass now resides in Thor’s fantasies instead. Wouldn’t Loki much prefer to know that? It’d set both their minds at ease.

 

Deciding that such was the best course of action, and leaning over him, level, temple to temple, his hand framing Thor’s face, Loki enters.

 

And sees exactly the opposite of what he wanted to see.

 

Rips himself away from the vision of—

 

Loki doesn’t have a high collared outfit on this time, which is now convenient, but he’s blushing so furiously that his face could have probably set the whole room aglow. For the subject of his lover’s dream had, in fact, been Loki himself, riding atop the prince in all his erect glory, his broad hands on his waist and thigh, pumping—

 

“You’ve made horrendous decisions one after the other since the day you fell for baby blue eyed blonds, Loki.” He mutters to himself in frustration.

 

Evidently, neither of them has moved past each other, or even close to. Lovely. Loki must live with the torment of that knowledge for another year, until – _Until what?_ – he snarls internally. _Until you check back annually that your nephew is no longer entertaining wet dreams of his uncle?_

 

To hell with romance. Because there was no longer any way in which this scenario was anything but pathetic and ridiculous, and Thor’s manhood is still a tentpole for the sheets, whereupon a small damp tip was---

 

Loki despairs with his face in his hands.

 

 _Yes, weep here you insipid. Though in that vision you sounded like you were rather taken by his, erm, most rigid ardor. There still remains something you can_ _do to grant both yours and his craven lusts._ The voice inside him states dryly, with no sympathy at all.

 

 _You mean make a mould and cast of his measurements, fashion myself an instrument of accurate scale and proportion, and have that satisfy me until the end of time?_ He counters.

 

_Just get yourself on that cock already and you won’t go daft from curiosity in the stretch after and **he** won’t perish from lack of blood to the brain. If you can take it._

 

And oh now he hates that part inside him, the part that always asks him _Why not?_

 

Maybe it has a twisted point. He wants this. Thor very clearly wants this. There would be no one to know, and further denial would be cruel.

 

He breathes. Approaching this from a clinical perspective. This is for the purpose of relief and relief only, and if nothing else for his birthday, Loki can give this. He closes his eyes and shudders, clothes dissolving away, and gets on the bed, stripping aside the linen sheets. Thor has been hard and leaking, for who knows how long.

 

Now that Loki has committed himself to this course of action and can see it fully: throbbing veins and angry glans, he shoves aside all conscience and etiquette. Slicks himself up with a hurried word. Between his own longing and the reserves of his magic running dry, it’s getting harder and harder to think straight.

 

Or was that just because he was pushing himself down with unrelenting force. The threat of the sleep spell failing and Thor waking up to…this. No, he’d best hurry. The burn is exquisite, and Loki’s heart is beating at a gallop. “Thor.” He moans, just as his counterpart did.

 

This was wrong, he knew. He had watched Thor grow up the entirety of his young life and was currently seated on the cock of the one he so blessed to magnificence over the years. But even as he acknowledged the sin, his own slender cock became fully hard and curved towards his belly. Loki uses one hand to fist himself, and the other to bite down on the back of as he recalled the image of himself upon Thor’s dream. Then he begins to undulate.

 

In the brief mental flash he saw, Thor was gripping his waist and thigh, rough fingers sinking into the pale flesh. But most of all, the way he had looked at Loki, the way it could have been…so full of passion. He pulls himself up past the flared head, and then sinks down swift to the heavy balls. Again.

 

_I love you._

 

The replayed memory of what Thor on his sixteenth had said to him, eyes tender. By then he was almost a head taller and twice as broad with corded muscle. Loki had to look up to meet his gaze. They were on the garden staircase, with but doves for bystanders.

 

_I love you._

 

The confession was almost too close of an admission to his own desires. It frightened him. He had fooled himself for so long believing that this was proper, good even, so long as he indulged Thor as a guardian…

 

_I love you._

 

Smartly, perhaps, Thor did not call him uncle then.

 

_I love you._

 

Any closer and their lips would have brushed. Loki saw himself reflected in those irises. So framed in beauty and infatuation.

 

_I love you._

 

But fled anyway.

 

_I love you._

 

He comes. Tension releasing. Thor’s face still resting. A strangled sound lodges itself in his throat. Everything was threatening to shatter.

 

His time is truly up. He drags himself off by his weak upper body strength, for god knows his legs are useless. Snaps out of location without any of the usual artistry, and barely has breath to pant the incantation, he’s so shaky.

 

It will likely take an entire year to recuperate.

 

Thor shoots up on the bed awake, shouting Loki’s name. His droplets of spend not yet cooled.

 

\---

 

It stays inside him, as he laid collapsed against the walls of his own tower. Loki wakes up some time in the night, musing at the stars. Waiting for daybreak has never seemed so long.

 

\---

 

Thor is almost eighteen and misses his uncle dearly. He is still the most highly regarded figure in the realm, but his people notice a sombre air about him. His eyes are lustreless when he smiles, and sometimes he smiles at nothing, ruefully. The king and queen wring their hands with worry, not knowing what to make of this strange moodiness other than to throw him all the jousting tournaments, hunting trips, and royal balls they can, thinking that such an illness can only be symptomatic of one who is lovesick. Yet despite the rumored names, none ever held any true weight.

 

Frigga notices her son watching at blackbirds and magpies a few times but thinks nothing on it.

 

Thor sometimes wonders how much of a mistake it was to say those words. Surely this agony couldn’t have been worse than having to conceal it from him the rest of his life. Loki had not visited him last year at all, and although it was hard to acknowledge the passing of that day, harder still would have been if Loki did return, only to pretend that nothing was awry, or have Thor renounce his affections altogether.

 

Thor is sure he must make a right fool, pausing to stare at dust motes in sunbeams, feeding bread crumbs to the passenger pigeons on the garden terrace – wondering if they could deliver a message, if only he could ever bring himself to resolution what to say.

 

The only time he ever saw Loki now was in his sleep, and at least those secrets he can keep.

 

\---

 

He thought very much of gliding across the seas as an albatross or soaring over the mountaintops as a condor, this time of the year. Anything at all, to take him somewhere the heart has no sway, somewhere that longs for nothing but the satisfaction of their lone journey and existence. Instead he finds himself as self-mocking as the jay.

 

More so, when the caustic voice inside told him he was _avoiding_ Thor. He corrects him(self). The pattern of encounters was only once a year to begin with. Thus he finds himself stalled, looking into the horizon on the setting sun. It was – still is – Thor’s eighteenth birthday.

 

In a few more hours, the day shall end, and with it, its significance. Hadn’t he wanted it to? Perhaps, but neither had he expected it to pass so quickly like a yawn.

 

It felt cold, leaving things to their closure this way. No goodbyes, no regrets.

 

_No regrets…_

 

\---

 

He had hoped…but alas that was all.

 

The hour was such that cast long shadows and boasted the most vivid colours, as it was, before the rind of sunset disappeared under the horizon. Today has felt eternal in an entirely different way, and yet all too soon to suddenly be over.

 

He should be the happiest being in all creation: to be loved by his people, the ideal in a righteous monarch, and to a land that was prosperous and free.

 

But he was alone, and the only other presence he desired would not deign to see him. He could not have felt more the town fool or village dunce if he tried. Had nothing but the crown of thorns on his head, dressed in the rags of his anticipations.

 

It would have been unsightly to be seen brooding on the canopy bed, but he doesn’t care. In the last moments of lighting as enchanting as this, he twirls the feather in his hands, admiring the sheen of the vane, and the barbs’ iridescence. A color of dark and green so lovely and mysterious, just like its owner. It was sharp and elegant along the length, with a fine dusting of soft down near the root. Thor strokes it whole, remerging into one shape.

 

He has never seen such alluring plumage on any bird.

 

“You could not have possibly remembered from whence that feather was from.”

 

Thor’s heart falters, one beat and another. He inhales and shudders to exhale. Shuts his eyes and is afraid to reopen them.

 

That voice…

 

“No, but I was told that any time they tried to take it from me, I would cry terribly.” And he had been capable of wailing with such strong lungs. “I’ve treasured it for as long as I had memory to recall.”

 

He hears a rustle move past him, and still only sees the darkness of his closed eyelids.

 

“I gave you two years to occupy your heart with another.”

 

“And yet I only yearn for you harder.”

 

In his dreams, Loki told him he loved him, and allowed himself to be loved in return. If he be dreaming still…

 

A pair of hands frame his face in their embrace. “Hello my prince.”

 

Only then does he allow himself…to behold the words their speaker. Behind him, the sun had not yet set in its course, awashing them in twilight. Loki’s face was shadowed, but it was enough. More than enough. His own hands rise to explore what his heart is too blinded by joy to see. The feather suddenly forgotten.

 

“I fear…that if you allow me to kiss you, I shall never stop.” Thor says, his voice a desperate whisper.

 

“Then let me be the one to do so instead.” and he does.

 

It’s completion greater than any coming of age.

 

They are kissing each other like rose petals brushing the lip of the one who samples it. They are kissing each other like fools in love made even more foolish. They are kissing each other as lovers vowing never to be parted. They are kissing each other like romance was theirs first to discover. They are kissing each other like sugar dissolving in water. They are kissing each other…

 

And that is all that mattered.

 

They shed all worldly materials until it is only the celestial bodies themselves reunified. He positions Loki beneath him, regarding him proper. The sunlight casts Thor in its luminosity instead, figure outlined in splendor and corona crowning him in its reborn glory.

 

To Loki, this image will forever be sacred. To Thor, the vision would always be revered. More so with it the cherished truth to say nothing of what could compare in dreams.

 

“You divine creature. I must have you more than the ways my heart limits.”

 

Loki takes another stolen moment to preserve in amber awareness. “Then fill all that the void inside me has left.”

 

He was a fine a paramour as any and with every touch Loki keened for more. The sensations felt good and then they felt better. Loki bared it all for him, opening at the pleasure like a pale bloom in darkness. Thor found places that Loki hadn’t been touched in a lifetime by another, followed with kisses, then trailed with tongue. Anything between them became torturously obstructive until it felt like even skin was too much, but then Thor entered him and _oh_ , it was heaven. A heaven so cumulative and thick that its clouds could support the castle of his daydreams when night could not come soon enough. Palatial and pure. Loki is both complete and undone.

 

It burned everywhere, his chest most intensely. He tipped his head back, Thor’s hand tanged in his hair, and saw shattering white.

 

They lay together in the hush of harmony.

 

With release came a heaviness to the silence like all things precious. Thor would’ve bore it for them both if he could. Loki rested his head on his chest, weary and spent. Permitting a sigh in the marvel of consummation, Thor pushed himself up on an elbow, and Loki looked up at him, exhausted eyes questioning. The light was so tender on his skin, softened by the perspiration on his brow and the moisture on his cheeks. His eyes were of a pasture green with dew, verdant and lush. Thor kissed him again, and when he moved away, there was a freshened dampness there too.

 

Thor kept admiring him, wondering whether the feeling was as gossamer as it was ethereal, or as tangible as spun silk.

 

“I cannot make this last forever.”

 

Thor’s thumb brushes the side of his face, “You needn’t have to…so long as you stay.”

 

Loki could no longer find fault with the logic.

 

So he does, and together they remain as still as a painting and golden as the frame that held it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~And they dicked happily ever after.~~  
>   
> 
> This was some proof-of-concept cake, and an absolute delight to write as well as discover further potentials for the kink medium. Loki's not actually evil in this, but he's got that Queen Ravenna costume closet going on. Thor is basically Aurora, I mean come on. Lips that shame the red red rose, and whatnot.


End file.
